Missing
by Lone Warrior2
Summary: Ryoga is a lost boy. But what does it mean to be truly lost? Is it more than just poor sense of direction? What happens when everyone forgets you exist? Do you let the sadness overwhelm you, or do you keep striving to do something they won't forget?


**Disclaimer**: OK, I do not own Ranma ½ or any of its characters. In this particular story I don't even own the title "lost boy", but I have my own little definition of it. This is a story about one person who is truly lost. He doesn't have very good sense of direction, but there is a certain magic aura about him. This aura makes it impossible for regular humans to sustain a knowledge of him. After so long, everyone forgets about him. No one knows what this will lead to, but in this particular story, Ranma and Akane have forgotten him. I think this will just be a one-shot, but I'm gathering ideas for a longer version of an action adventure fic with more plot and more detail. This was just something I wanted to get written down and out to the public.  
  
And so now, read and find out what it truly means to be lost… what it truly means, to be missing…  
  
(**A/N**, this is an alternate universe incase you couldn't guess. Yes I know Ranma and Akane really do care more about him than this, but the curse has come into play so they don't remember him)  
  
**Missing**  
  
I look back at the house that I had once called my home. Equipped with only a small sack of food and a few clothes, my normal pack, I begin walking away from it. I don't plan on returning. I may be the lost boy… but I'll never come back to this place. Too much grief lays here for me.  
  
There was only one, who knew who I was. Even he hardly acknowledges my existence. No one seems to care about me. They know me not as Ryoga, they know me only as P-chan. I have no reason to stay there any longer.  
  
_Please, please forgive me,  
  
But I won't be home again.  
  
Maybe someday you'll have woke up,  
  
And, barely conscious, you'll say to no one:  
  
"Isn't something missing?"  
_  
I apologize to anyone who cares about my leaving. I plan to never let my feet carry me here again. Ah, Akane, Ranma Saotome… neither of you or your friends could even tell I was there. I can only hope that I left something of an imprint in your minds. The guy who you fought with, or that one person who accidentally chopped off your hair.  
  
You'll not see it now, the festivities of your happiness will see to that. Engagement parties tend to do that to people. Perhaps one day in the future… you'll wake up in the early hours of the morning with a slight remembrance lingering in your mind and say… "Isn't something missing?"  
  
I wake up to that pang of realization every day, except I know what is missing and it begins to hurt even more. I'm missing the satisfaction of being with Akane… I'm missing the honor I would gain back after defeating Saotome… I'm missing what I'm doing here, what my purpose is…  
  
_You won't cry for my absence, I know -  
  
You forgot me long ago.  
  
Am I that unimportant...?  
  
Am I so insignificant...?  
  
Isn't something missing?  
  
Isn't someone missing me?  
_  
It hurts to see you cry Akane… but you do. When Ranma is away or in danger… when he could die or be lost, you cry for him. But every time I am absent… when I'm P-chan, and Ryoga isn't there, you never cry. You barely notice.  
  
However the worst pain was what happened three days ago. Ranma was walking downtown and I saw him about to cross the street. I challenged him once again but he waved me off and crossed the street. I ran up to him as he came to a fountain and tried again. He replied, "Who are you? I have no fight with you, back off."  
  
How angry I was that he could not remember me. I had challenged him not 24 hours since and he had not even remembered my feeble antics to try to get him to fight me. I lunged at him and he struck me once. He hit me right into the fountain where I was drenched with cold water. I turned into a little black pig right in the middle of town in a fountain. As he walked away, he laughed, as if I were the funniest attraction in the world.  
  
Humiliation beyond all other humiliation did I find there. Sitting in the middle of town, drenched to the bone as a small black animal. This however would not have prepared me for what came next.  
  
I walked back to Akane's house and found some hot water to get my human self back again. When I had changed back into my spare clothes and dried off, I went out to the dojo. Akane was there training. There she was. The slight sheen of sweat made her so beautiful, so enticing. Perhaps I could greet her, was the thought in my mind. Maybe that will make me feel better, to see her smiling face.  
  
I walked up to her waving my hand. "Hi Akane." They were my first words.  
  
She replied, but not with an answer I was expecting. "Um… hello… who are you?"  
  
I was stunned. "Its Ryoga, one of Ranma's rivals."  
  
She seemed as puzzled as ever, "Who?"  
  
Pieces of my broken crystal heart began rising to my eyes as I tried to put on a pleasant smile. "Oh… never mind. I guess you have forgotten me…"  
  
"Alright, well, see you around." She stated and got back to work.  
  
I turned away and took off at a run, I do the same now, as if to escape the memory I just reminisced… I guess you have forgotten me… like everyone else.  
  
I'm that unimportant am I? I'm that insignificant. You don't care because you don't know. Won't someone find something missing… will no one miss me?  
  
_Even though I'd be sacrificed,  
  
You won't try for me, not now.  
  
Though I'd die to know you love me,  
  
I'm all alone.  
  
Isn't someone missing me?  
_  
You'll give up me for more room to place new memories. You're not even going to try to keep me in your heart as I have kept you. You'll not keep me in your hatred as I have kept you? The damage has been done, no one can go back. If I could just discover that you love me… I would die to obtain that knowledge. I would give my life to know if you really do love me at all. But it is not so.  
  
I have always been alone. I've always been lost. Even among those who might help, they lose me eventually. I was cursed long before I went to those damn springs. Now not only do I have two identities, but also a curse to be lost. I can't even find the fucking lot behind my own house. Much less find my way through a maze of feelings and emotions to someone else's heart.  
  
This has happened before, my own parents eventually forgot me because I was lost from their memories. I came home from school one night and they had somehow forgotten who I was. My room had been turned into a coffee room. All my possecions were in the garage. They told me they did not know who I was, they told me to get out… I must be insane. Mother and Father had forgotten that they even had a child.  
  
I've always been lost, it's amazing that I haven't lost my own mind. Amazing indeed, but another curse. I live as only a vessel for grief and anguish, which is all I have ever known. The few sparks of happiness I ever contracted were from Akane and that was only as a pig that isn't even my true identity. Please, don't you miss me? Will you ever miss me? Ever be able to tell that I'm not there?  
  
_Please, please forgive me,  
  
But I won't be home again.  
  
I know what you do to yourself,  
  
Shudder deep and cry out:  
  
"Isn't something missing?  
  
Isn't someone missing me?"  
_  
Forgive me for what I've done. I've left, and I'm never going to try to make a comeback to your lives. I'll never return to the place I knew for awhile as home. I've run as far as a riverbed and fallen on the dry rocks scraping and hurting my arms and knees. I gasp for air as my lungs scream in protest. I go through the events in my mind as a cold wind sweeps the ground. The chill in the wind mixed with my own breathlessness and emotions make me shudder deeply. I cry out to the world the words I am thinking. "Isn't something missing?!? Isn't someone missing me? Doesn't anyone out there care about the one who is missing?"  
  
_Even though I'd be sacrificed, _

_You won't try for me, not now. _

_Though I'd die to know you love me, _

_I'm all alone. _

_Isn't someone missing me?  
_  
No one comes, no one even replies. They can't hear me, they don't try. They don't care, they don't know. I would give my very soul to the devil if I could know that you love me. I would gladly jump into hell if I knew you loved me. I am alone, sitting in a dry riverbed with only rocks and thunderclouds to keep me company. I whisper, "Isn't someone missing me?"  
  
_And if I bleed, I'll bleed,  
  
Knowing you don't care.  
  
And if I sleep just to dream of you  
  
And wake without you there,  
  
Isn't something missing?  
  
Isn't something...  
_  
The cuts from falling on the rocks begin to bleed. The garnet liquid flows out like tears of a forgotten red storm. You really don't care. No one does. Not Akane, not Ranma, hell, I don't even know if I care anymore. I can bleed as much as I want and no one is going to even start worrying about it.  
  
The blood loss, fatigue, and utter hopelessness of it all make me drowsy and soon the ground just sort of… comes at me really fast. My eyes close and the dreams begin.  
  
I see Akane… she is in a beautiful yellow dress that hugs her curves perfectly and accents that lovely cream tone of her skin. She runs to me and I hold my hands out to greet her… then she just passes right through me, into the waiting arms of Saotome.  
  
He looks sharp in a black suit that makes him seem strait as a board. They kiss passionately, the way I always wanted to do with Akane.  
  
I look down at myself to realize I'm in rags. My shirt and pants are stained with mud and grass my hands covered in little cuts and bruises. My skin… my clothes… my body… its all see through. They can't see me. They can't feel me. I'm not there, and they're having the time of their lives.  
  
I wake with a start, no one is there. I'm still in the little area of the dry riverbed, I'm still bleeding on my arms and knees, I'm still alone, and it's still dark. Can't you feel anything missing? I'm going through all this and you can't see that I'm missing, can you?  
  
_Even though I'd be sacrificed,  
  
You won't try for me, not now.  
  
Though I'd die to know you love me,  
  
I'm all alone.  
  
Isn't someone missing me?  
_  
You all sacrificed my memories for new ones, better ones. You didn't even try to keep me with you. I wish I could die. I would die to know that you love me… but I would also die to know that you don't. Alone is all I am and ever will be. I whisper to the night sky once again with a longing expression and tears in my eyes… "Isn't someone missing me?"


End file.
